this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
130 points (85.7% liked)

Science Fiction

13580 readers
1 users here now

Welcome to /c/ScienceFiction

December book club canceled. Short stories instead!

We are a community for discussing all things Science Fiction. We want this to be a place for members to discuss and share everything they love about Science Fiction, whether that be books, movies, TV shows and more. Please feel free to take part and help our community grow.

  1. Be civil: disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally insult others.
  2. Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, ableist, or advocating violence will be removed.
  3. Spam, self promotion, trolling, and bots are not allowed
  4. Put (Spoilers) in the title of your post if you anticipate spoilers.
  5. Please use spoiler tags whenever commenting a spoiler in a non-spoiler thread.

Lemmy World Rules

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 136 points 8 months ago (17 children)

acting as a strong comeback for Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss.

No thank you.

I've heard great things about this story, but I'm not watching something run by these loons.

If it's a one and done season, I'll watch it once it's done. If it's going to take multiple seasons, I'll watch it when it's done. It's Netflix, so they won't finish it.

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 48 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

lmao is this post advertising something made by Dave and Dave? hard pass......... especially if the motherfuckers are getting high praise in the press for an unfinished story. call me when you release the final finale and the general public receives it well

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I knew they were involved, but I was surprised to see their name dropped in the article. I assumed they would try to downplay their involvement so I checked the article to be sure.

I appreciate the honesty, but no thank you.

[–] CptEnder@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The main trailer has "from the creators of Game of Thrones" so yeah they're doubling down on the D&D.

I meannnn. They had to finish an unfinished story, and they def fucked it up. But they also made some of the best television I've seen S1-5 based off GRRMs work. I'm not giving them a pass but holy fuck that gamble of him having an ending by S9 wasn't like out of the realm of possibilities, I kinda also blame GRRM.

That being said I'm definitely waiting for large scale reviews and friend suggestions on this one. The trailer did look promising though.

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

It's fair for GRRM to share some of the blame, but any Internet commenter, who can't write for shit (see me), could have written a better ending.

To me it seemed like they were bored and wanted to move on. They had Star Wars/Disney lined up. They had Netflix (possibly this thing) lined up. Conceptually I get it. They'd worked on Game of Thrones for years, it was time to move on.

But they fucked up bad. Real bad.

Obviously I hope they've learned and are better now, but I'm not betting on it.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago (4 children)

And the Three Body series is finished as far as I know.

I mean, that ending had to have been the final ending right?

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Unfortunately there’s no way to actually predict the Three Body Problem.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] pelletbucket@lemm.ee 31 points 8 months ago (2 children)

they do perfectly fine when they are adapting existing material. it's when you ask them to write their own story that they can't handle it. the first four seasons of Game of Thrones were fucking exceptional. I have no idea how you turn this book into a movie though

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Over its eight-episode run

It's a series AFAIK.

I do agree they did a solid job adapting things, and I would hope the collective slap from the failure that was the final seasons of Game of Thrones would humble them.

I'm not writing the series off completely, I'm just not willing to give it a shot until after a thorough review and clear ending.

[–] ahal@lemmy.ca 8 points 8 months ago

Unlike Game of Thrones, the source material for this is finished. Game of Thrones went to shit once they ran out of source material.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 23 points 8 months ago

It's based on book one of a trilogy.

[–] pfaca@lemm.ee 22 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Well, if they just stick to adapting the books (and to my knowledge the story is finished) I'm OK with it. With GoT the problem was mostly when the source material was over, till then they did a good job adapting the story.

[–] bfg9k@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months ago

Oh those fuck boys are involved? Hard pass

[–] abracaDavid@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

Minor spoilers ahead.

I have no clue what this show will be like.

I read the trilogy and I'm not really sure that it will translate to the screen very well. The story is absolutely massive and spans from beginning in the Chinese cultural revolution and ends at the literal end of time.

That being said, it is probably my favorite and what I consider the best sci-fi trilogy out there.

Incredibly interesting concepts are explored and it also has a really interesting way of telling the story. It's not just about one guy saving the whole universe. It catalogs all of civilization's attempts at coming together and protecting humanity from an alien threat. And it also goes into all of the issues that humanity runs into while trying to work together, while also spanning across thousands of years.

It's a really fantastic series and I would highly recommend it to just about anyone with an intellectual interest in humanity's future.

It's a big statement to say, but this book changed my outlook on humanity and globalism.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Adrian Tchaikovsky. Three books starting with "Children Of Time." After centuries of collapse after meltdown, Earth's last gast is an attempt to terraform dozens of exoplanets. The books do a great job of describing non-Human races

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 5 points 8 months ago

The series was a really interesting exercise in not giving the protagonists anything like a fair fight. Like, the level of hopelessness is impressive. It made me realize almost every other story I’ve ever seen is like children’s material compared to this, in terms of hand-holding the audience and making sure they’re safe.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Just pirate it. And if you are paying for Netflix already it doesn't matter if you watch it or not, you already paid.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Eh, even when pirating, you don't want to get invested into a story for them to completely ruin it in a few seasons. For how good the early seasons of game of thrones are, I can't rewatch them because of season 8.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago

It's not a matter of pirating or not, it's a matter of quality.

[–] Worx@lemmynsfw.com 7 points 8 months ago

Still have to invest time and emotion into watching it. Money isn't the only metric

[–] state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I haven't heard great things about the story, quite the contrary. Combined with these two dumbos behind it I have no hopes for this to be good. I'll still watch it, because it's sci-fi, though.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Well I read the book, and I want to say I loved it. But 90 percent of the book is buildup, focusing on the Chinese social revolution. It's equal parts tragic, confusing and horrifying. I mean, it's a human story, but it's not scifi and it's honestly hard to get through. But then the last two chapters have some fantastic scifi, some of the coolest ideas I've seen in fact!

But I'm not sure it's worth it. I kind of want to recommend reading just the last three chapters or something.

In contrast, The Expanse is a fantastic book series (and tv show) and that's a fantastic scifi story all the way through for like 6 books.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
[–] GlitterInfection@lemmy.world 31 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (22 children)

I tried to read the books this is based on and felt like I was being punked.

The writing in the first chapter, specifically around the dialogue of the man on the stage who is telling the story about his wife's father was so incredibly stilted that I couldn't get through it. It was unfathomably badly written dialogue that I can only imagine it's something lost in translation that triggers every pet peeve I have about dialogue.

And most people rave about the books. So this is probably a me problem more than anything. I just don't understand it.

So as long as they hired some writers to do a better job at the dialogue I might be one of those people who likes the show and not the books.

edit: dialogue

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I always figured the dialogue was a lost in translation/ cultural disconnect thing. What I had a problem with was the way Liu writes women. The way Zhuang Yen comes into the story into the second book made me want to puke.

[–] 6daemonbag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It was so tough getting through the first half of The Dark Forest because of the women. But damn the second half is incredible

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Zyrxil@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago

That's because the book was not written in English. The translation preserves a lot of the cadence of the original Chinese writing. You may not be used to it, but that's not uncommon for translated works in general.

[–] Dasnap@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm half way through The Dark Forest and while I'm really enjoying it, it's certainly not because of the character writing. Could just be a translation issue but a native speaker would have to chime in on that. I'm still enjoying going through the trilogy though just for the concepts alone.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] themadcodger@kbin.social 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You're not alone. I tried reading them and the premise was something I could get behind but the way it was written drove me crazy. I agree that if they had a better translator to make it sound more native English, I probably would have been fine with it. Bit as it stands it sounded very Chinese still. I'm hoping the show will solve that problem for us.

[–] GlitterInfection@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

I'm glad I'm not alone on this.

I may be able to retry them knowing that they aren't translated in a way that feels more western, but I had just come off of some cozy-fantasy and sci-fi books and it was shockingly jarring to even try to get through.

I often feel like when most people love something and I don't, I owe it to myself to figure out why.

[–] ashok36@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

I agree. I got to the third act of the first book and just gave up. It had moments but I could just not stick with it.

[–] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Fwiw, usually "dialogue" is used for verbal speech. "Dialog" tends to be used for computer-related topics.

[–] Dasnap@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Huh, I always just assumed it was a regional thing.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] GlitterInfection@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

Fair correction. Thank you.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ahal@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 months ago

Yeah, the character development and dialogue is pretty bad. I rave about it for all the cool ideas it exposed me to. I value that more highly than pretty much anything else. To each their own :)

load more comments (14 replies)
[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 20 points 8 months ago (7 children)

Anyone who has read the books want to chime in? I read the books and they had a "painting in a museum" type quality to them, where each chapter was a well described static scene. Fun concepts (in particular, the Dark Forest concept), but really dry prose...

[–] SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They’re pretty good. The quality of the writing, for me as an English speaker, was in the translation work by Ken Liu who did a phenomenal job.

I can’t imagine it’s easy to convey idioms/ideas that native speakers take for granted in a concise way.

I think he didn’t do the second book or third and it shows. Still good but more stilted.

All that is to say that the incongruity and style may be a side effect of the translation process itself.

[–] NielsBohron@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

I think there are some editions of the second book done by Ken Liu, aren't there? I haven't read it yet, but I got a copy from a used book shop, and remember thinking that it was the same translator. At least, I thought I thought it was...now I've gotta go home and check

[–] dariusj18@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I am personally wondering how they will pull it off. My guess is that the story/plot/pacing will be based on the book, but I'm sure they'll add in more characters and drama. Probably heavily rearrange the order too.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] GrabtharsHammer@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

The ideas were mostly neat but I just couldn't abide the plot being driven by absurdly stupid actions over and over.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

On one hand, it's the freaking 3 body problem. On the other, it's Netflix🤮🤮

[–] scytale@lemm.ee 10 points 8 months ago

I was burned by True Detective Night Country pre-debut reviews just 2 months ago. I'll believe it when I actually see it.

[–] retrieval4558@mander.xyz 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm going to watch it but if those two assholes ruin something else I love I'm going to take a shit on their doorsteps.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›